Latest / Imperfect Marketing / Episode 129 Elevating Your Podcast Game: Mastering the Art of Podcast Interviews

Transcript

Episode 129 Elevating Your Podcast Game: Mastering the Art of Podcast Interviews · Imperfect Marketing

• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back to Imperfect Marketing.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, kendra Corman.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Today's Imperfect Marketing Brief is about mastering the art of podcast interviews.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I have to tell you that this is something that I'm still working on mastering myself, but it is something that I really struggled with early on when I was starting to conduct interviews for my podcast, Because I tried to overly script everything and I made it very templated and didn't really allow for a lot of conversation to happen, even though I wanted to, and I would skip questions that would come up in my head during our conversation, partially because I was thinking about what I was going to say next, and it was usually something related to the list of questions I had for the guest.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: So when you are working on a podcast and working on the interview, the first thing you need to work on is pre-interview research.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So pre-interview research is very important because it lets you know who the guest is, what their expertise is, a little bit on what they're talking about.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I know a couple of people that have 15-minute pre-interviews with their guests or 30-minute pre-interviews with their guests to really get a feel for how they're going to work and how things are going to flow.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: So that can be an option for how you research your guest.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Other things you can do you can look up their social media profiles.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: You can listen to previous interviews that they do.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: You can look at their blog.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You can look at just their website.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Just a ton of different things that you can look at when it comes to researching your guest.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But the more research you do, ads are the better the episode is going to be.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I know you've heard me talk about it before, but I use a service called Podmatch.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Podmatch really does help me because it puts all of this research in one area and the guest actually adds different questions that they would like to be asked, and so that really helps cut this stage down for me.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Now, when you're thinking about what questions you're going to ask, I do still craft questions.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I don't necessarily create the entire episode Q&A because, again, I want it to flow, but I start off with a handful of questions that I want to ask the guest.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: They are open-ended questions.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: They are things like what do you think about or can you tell me more about things like that?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Because it invites discussion.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: You got to try and avoid yes-no questions, so when you are asking yes-no questions, they can pretty much say yes or no and maybe a short, brief explanation, but it doesn't give a lot of room for conversation, which makes for a boring podcast episode.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: And again, you want to tailor all of these questions to first your audience and then the guest.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So if the guest can't talk about things that your audience is interested in, they might not be the right fit for your audience, and that's something that you definitely want to think about Now when you are actually interviewing them.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: You want to create a comfortable environment.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: They don't have to be sitting back chilling on a couch or anything like that.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: You don't have to be offering them a latte or ordering in Starbucks if you're doing it in person, but you really want to have a conversation with them beforehand, get a feel for the pace and how they want to chat with you and how that conversation is going to go.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: It really puts them at ease.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You do the tech checks, all of that fun stuff, and it really does put them at ease and makes for a much better result in your podcast.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Now you want to be actively listening, okay, so again, in the beginning this is something I did horribly I never listened to what they had to say because I was constantly thinking about what I was supposed to be asking next and thinking ahead to what you're going to be asking does not create active listening.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: You can edit out spaces later.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's super easy.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I use Descript and it will actually, using AI, will remove any pauses longer than two or three seconds.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: A pause is not the end of the world.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, you can do that so that you can think of your question after you actively listen to your guest.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: And then you want to make sure that you keep the episode on track because for time management but again, you can go longer and edit it down if you need to, depending on how long your audience likes to listen.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I started most of my podcasts for around an hour and then I edited them down, significantly moving forward, and now I record about 30 minutes max, just simply because people didn't want to listen that long.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And I've heard a lot of great feedback on these imperfect marketing briefs because they are so short and they're all under 15 minutes, usually under five, but this one clearly is going to be longer than that, as we've already passed the five-minute mark.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now, when you are moving on from the interview, you want to thank the guest for joining you, not just on the episode, but maybe follow up with them with an email.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Let them know that when the episode is going to release, maybe let them know hey, you know the episode is releasing this week, so constantly send reminders and engage with them.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: This is one thing that I don't do nearly enough of, but that follow up and relationship building is key.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Now, finally, when it comes to after your interview, you want to actually work with them on promotion.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: So my email that tells them what, when it's going to release, that it's going to release in the next week, we go ahead and we highlight where it's going to be, when they can start sharing about it, and we even give them some assets from the show, so graphics, clips from Riverside, things like that so that they can actually promote it appropriately to all of their networks.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Because this is a great way for me to grow my podcast by having guests and getting exposure to their networks, and it's a great way for my guests to get exposure to you all.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: And then you know again when you're leveraging the interview.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You want clips and highlights, you want transcriptions, you want to think about if there's any way to repurpose the content, to highlight it and draw people in through different methods.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I hope that you found this week's Imperfect Marketing Brief helpful.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I covered a lot of topics, but I think the biggest thing to remember is, when you're interviewing during a podcast, make sure that you're actively listening.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: That is huge because that will actually fuel the conversation.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: So don't be so nervous that you are working to a script, like I used to Make sure you're thinking about the value that they can add and get clarification and engage along the way.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you again so much for tuning in to another Imperfect Marketing Brief.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: If you learned anything in this episode, it would really help me if you would rate and subscribe.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks, and have a great rest of your day.